Paul Higgs and Ralph Pudritz at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, point out that all these experiments produced a subset of the same 10 amino acids and calculate that these 10 require the least amount of energy to form.

This, they argue, suggests that if alien life exists it probably has the same 10 amino acids at its core.

Universal code?

They show how the other 10 may have been added one by one as early life on Earth became more sophisticated. More controversially, they go on to argue that this process dictated the evolution of the genetic code, suggesting it too is universal.

Darren Griffin, a geneticist at the University of Kent, UK, suggests Higgs and Pudritz are pushing their conclusions too far.

"Laws of physics govern the universe, and it seems reasonable to suggest that there are laws of molecular biology that may also be universal," he says. "But it seems unlikely that the very same genetic code would arise on another planet, even if there are similarities in the fundamental molecules such as amino acids."

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Was Jabba the Hutt made from the same genetic building blocks as life on Earth? (Image: Jonathan Hordle / Rex)